


watch death unfold

by Remy (iamremy)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Falling In Love, Fluff, Graphic descriptions of suicide, Grim Reapers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multiple Suicide Attempts, Reaper!Steve, Reapers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 06:03:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3239045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamremy/pseuds/Remy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Birthday gift for <a href="http://agentshnucumbs.tumblr.com/">Renae</a>.</p>
<p>Steve is a reaper, tasked with collecting Tony Stark's soul... multiple times. Somewhere along the line, his reality begins to shift and change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	watch death unfold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Renae wanted a fantasy AU with any one of her OTPs. I decided Stony. I'm not sure that this is what you had in mind, but I hope you like it anyway <333
> 
> Happy 19th, sweetheart. I love you and always will <333 you're an amazing and lovely human being and one of my closest friends and I hope that nothing ever changes between us except for the better. I love you, sunshine <3
> 
> Heed the warnings in the tag though, people. There are also mentions of self-harm and alcoholism.

Steve doesn't think he's ever going to forget his first human.

It's a teenager, barely sixteen, a storm of dark hair and intelligent brown eyes and biting wit, brain so sharp Steve feels he could cut himself on it – and he's bleeding out in his bathtub at 2 AM with some horrible guitar solo playing in the background. Steve, who's new to this entire collect-the-souls-of-the-dead thing, hates that his first is a suicide, and that too of someone with such _potential_ , but you gotta do what you gotta do and so he flies down, settles by the side of the bathtub as he anxiously waits.

The boy turns his head slowly, and then blinks. “Who the hell are you?” he demands, attempting to sound firm but just managing to sound very weak and tired.

“I'm here for you,” Steve informs him. “To help you cross over.”

The boy snorts. “Yeah right. Gotta be hallucinating.” He attempts to raise one arm, a sluggish half-aborted gesture, but then it falls right back, blood spurting out in sickening jets. Steve looks away. Soon there will not be enough blood left to sustain this boy's life.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks, focusing on the boy's paper-white face instead of the rapidly darkening bathwater.

“Why not?” retorts the boy. “Why'm I even talking to you, you're not real,” he says a second later.

Steve's been told that this might happen, that the dying person might not believe him. Still, he supposes it'll be real enough to the boy in a minute or two, so he doesn't argue. “You didn't answer my question,” he says instead.

“What's there to say?” mumbles the boy. His voice is getting lower, weaker, and Steve knows he has precious few minutes left. “What's the point in being alive, if no one wants me around?”

“I'm pretty sure that's not true,” Steve comments.

The boy snorts weakly. “What would  _you_ know?” He tries to shift a little, and then grimaces. “God, this hurts. I should've OD'd instead. Or shot myself. I don't know, anything'd be better than  _this_ crap.”

Steve doesn't like how well the boy's thought out his own death, but soon enough it's not going to matter. He waits patiently, not knowing what to say to the boy to convince him he's wrong. It doesn't matter anyway – the boy's already dead. That's why Steve's here.

He opens his mouth to ask something when suddenly the door bursts open, and a frightened-looking woman bursts in, clapping her hands over her mouth, a muffled “Tony!” leaving her lips just before she screams, “SOMEBODY HELP!”

Steve feels a tug in his abdomen, and understands. It's not his time, not just yet. The last thing he hears from the boy is a faint “Oh,  _shit,_ I'm so  _fucked_ ,” before he leaves.

* * *

The second time he meets the boy – man? – is a few years later, when Tony's 21. He's lying alone in his bedroom with a glass of whiskey dangling from his fingers, the bottle standing on his nightstand, AC/DC playing in the background. It's the only drink in the room, but Steve knows the man's had more. Many, many more.

He's barely breathing, his chest rising and falling so slowly that it takes Steve some time to ascertain that he's still alive. His face is pale, bluish... Steve's seen it before too, but he can't help wonder what Tony's skin looks like when he's  _not_ at the brink of death. His eyes are closed, but when Steve nears his bed he slowly opens them and slurs, “You again?”

“Yeah, me again,” Steve tells him. “It's been just five years. Why are you so determined to die?”

Tony exhales through his mouth. “I dunno.” He won't take long. His breathing is already very slow, seven breaths a minute (Steve counts), and soon it will cease.

“That's not a very good answer.” Steve sits on the bed, next to Tony. Because he's not corporeal, not like humans, the bed doesn't sink, but Tony seems to feel it anyway.

“You're... not real,” he states. The glass falls from his fingers and shatters on the floor. “Shit,” he announces, voice almost inaudible. “I broke it. I break everything.”

“No you don't.” Steve's voice is laced with sadness, and he doesn't _understand_ , doesn't get why watching this particular human's life ebb away is affecting him so. In the five years since he's seen Tony, he's reaped hundreds upon hundreds of humans. Some come quietly, some fight to the last. Some die peacefully and some go out with a bang. Some see him, some don't. Some believe him, most don't. He feels bad for some of them, the murder victims and the suicides and the terminally ill... but he's never felt like this.

He's not even sure he's supposed to feel  _this_ , whatever it is, this aching sorrow at the waste of life. So completely unnecessary. Tony's so  _valuable_ . Steve has never encountered someone who has Tony's level of intellect, who sees things the way Tony does.

“Yes I do,” Tony mumbles, and a tear leaks out of the corner of one eye, runs down into his damp, sweaty hair. Steve notices people, always has, commits their appearance to memory and ruminates on it later, it's just what he used to do in his previous life as an artist and it's something he still does, and he doesn't think he can ever forget the way Tony's dark hair curls just so over his ears.

His breathing is much, much slower. Five per minute. He's not got long left. Steve hates waiting, hates watching the life leave someone as he reaps them, and particularly hates how all of it is so much more magnified for this human.

This remarkable human.

“Look at me.” Tony chuckles, but it comes out as weak wheezing. “You don't even _exist_. I'm talking to a hallucination.”

Again, the same misconception. Doesn't matter. He'll see soon enough.

“Do you ever...” Tony stops, inhales, coughs. “Do you ever think that...” More coughing, Steve would be alarmed if he didn't know where this was leading. “That maybe it's better if – if you weren't there?” He's not slurring anymore, the entire _impending death_ thing lending a certain clarity to his words. “Like... you break everything you touch, and it'd just be... _better_? Without you?”

“No,” Steve answers honestly. “I know I have my place in the universe, in the order of things. Nobody else can take that place, because nobody can work like me, you know? Nobody can _be_ me. So if I wasn't there... things would be different. And not better-different, I think.” He's good at his job, he knows this. He knows how to console the hysterical ones, to calm the raging ones, to soothe the agonized ones. And he knows he's better at it than most other reapers.

But he doesn't get why he's offering comforting words to a man who has approximately two minutes and six breaths left. The words won't help, they won't change a thing even if they change Tony's mind, because he hasn't got enough time to act on them. They're useless.

Tony's eyes are closed. He's breathing very, very slow indeed. Steve thinks maybe he's dead a minute earlier than predicted, but then he whispers, “I wish... I could do it different. Maybe... maybe not fuck up so much.”

Steve would reply, but he's rudely interrupted by a tall, dark man throwning open the door to the room, shouting “WHAT THE  _FUCK_ , TONY?” and Steve knows who this is, this is James Rhodes, and tonight he's going to save Tony and then kick his ass.

He's gone before James Rhodes enters the room.

* * *

It's starting to affect his job now, his encounters with Tony, the last words he heard Tony say. He sees Tony in every pale-skinned, dark-haired man he reaps, in every intelligent human he collects, ever suicide he meets. He hears Tony every time he hears someone express regret, and it concerns him how the man's taken over his mind.

Still, he does his job quietly, without complaint, day by day and year after year, and in his spare time he wonders at how self-destructive this man is, two suicide attempts, self-harm and alcohol... and he thinks of the unique way his hair curls.

* * *

The third time is a few years later. Tony is 27, and he's the head of a successful corporation, and he has everything that other people can only dream of. Steve wonders if he's happy now, but one look at his fading body proves otherwise.

He's in his bed, and there are empty pill bottles all around him, and the damned whiskey again, and that stupid, stupid AC/DC song. His breathing is almost non-existent, his heart is jackhammering against his chest and his skin is red, flushed with sweat. This is not quite what Steve meant when he thought he wanted to see Tony's skin when it wasn't death-pale. He tells Tony this.

“Why would you care, you're not real,” Tony replies, but it sounds doubtful now. “Why do I see you, every time I die?” he wonders. “Who _are_ you?”

“My name is Steve,” Steve tells him. “This is what I do. I help souls cross over. You've tried to kill yourself twice, you know.”

“Third time lucky,” murmurs Tony, and gasps out a mirthless laugh.

“You said you wanted a do-over, the last time I saw you. Then, why did you do this?” asks Steve as he settles in to wait, sitting right next to Tony this time.

“It wasn't enough,” Tony whispers in reply. “Everything I did... it's not enough, I don't, I don't feel _good_ , like you know no matter what you do it'll never be enough to cross out every shitty thing you did...” He closes his eyes, inhales deeply, and opens them again. “I don't... I shouldn't be here,” he says, exhaling. “People are dead. I... I can't, I can't go on knowing... it's on me.”

“I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm pretty sure you're wrong,” Steve informs him. “You, you're a _genius._ I've reaped hundreds of people but I've never seen anyone like you. What is it with you? Why can't you see yourself the way you really are?”

“I _do_ see myself the way I really am,” Tony points out. “And I don't like it. I thought we... we already established that.”

“You're wrong,” Steve tells him squarely. “If you die right now, tonight, in this bed... what will you have accomplished? You'll die knowing you've hated yourself your entire life. There will be people who will mourn you, who wouldn't want you to die, who'd miss you every day. Tony... it's not as easy as you make it out to be.”

“Who said it's easy?” asks Tony rhetorically. “This is the hardest... thing I've ever had to do. _You_ , you wouldn't know, you've never had to die, have you? You never had a _life_ , you don't know what it's like to be aware of exactly _how_ much everyone hates you... it fucking sucks, all right.”

Steve halts, ignores the way the words sting, they shouldn't  _sting_ he's a reaper – and he says, “Why this song? What is it?”

“AC/DC,” Tony tells him with a little ironic chuckle. “It's called _Hell's Bells_. I kinda think it makes sense... doesn't it?”

“You think you'll go to hell,” Steve says. It's not a question.

“I dunno, I was kinda hoping... hell didn't exist.” Tony's struggling with the words now. “If it does... where else would I go, right? So what I'm really hoping... to, to accomplish here, is sweet oblivion.” His lips quirk bitterly at the words.

“You're not going to hell,” sighs Steve. Really, what is this man? “Fella like you doesn't go to hell. You've done some good, you know, even if you don't believe it. People benefit from your inventions.”

“But more people die because of them,” rasps Tony. “I don't... I don't want any part in it. I _hate_ it.”

“So stop it,” says Steve simply. “If you die now, they'll just give your company to someone else who'll keep doing the same thing. You're the only one who can change that. You're the only one who can _do something about it_ , but you can't do it if you're not around.”

“What're you saying?” asks Tony hoarsely. “Steve, I – I don't...”

“Excuses,” cuts in Steve firmly. He crosses his arms. “Tony, these are just excuses and you know it. You know I'm right.”

Tony sighs. “You're not going to leave me until I listen, are you? Or until I die.”

Steve nods. “But you don't want to die.”

“No, not really,” admits Tony. “Who the hell enjoys dying? I just... there isn't... I can't see any other road. Not for me. None of that Zen stuff works for me, I can't, I can't _let it all go_ or be at harmony or whatever.”

“Try,” insists Steve. “Give it another go. Don't give up.”

Tony regards him for a long time, minutes it feels like even though it's only seconds, and Steve begins to panic a little because  _Tony doesn't have much time left_ , and isn't that strange? He doesn't want to do his job for once. That's... never happened before.

But finally Tony painstakingly reaches for his cell phone and he dials 911, and Steve doesn't leave until he's sure Tony's not going to back out of it.

* * *

The next time is when Tony is a few years later, and Steve is relieved to see it isn't suicide. Instead, Tony's lying in a hospital bed, beaten and bruised all over, and no one thinks he's going to make it. “What did you do?” sighs Steve.

Tony's technically in a coma, but that doesn't mean they can't talk. Tony's seeing him as a dream, and Steve's seeing him as he really is, standing upright and strong, tanned skin and dark curls, sharp eyes that see everything, grease stains on his hand and clothes.

“I saved some people,” Tony tells him, and there's a hint of pride in his tone, and it's nice to hear his voice the way it's supposed to be, nice to see him not struggling to pull in a breath. “Weren't expecting that, were you? Gotta tell you, a lot's changed in these few years.”

“I'm aware,” Steve says, and for the first time he smiles warmly at Tony. “You... you did it. You fixed it, you made a difference.”

“I did,” agrees Tony, and he's going for smug but Steve knows he's really, really proud of himself, maybe even a little bit _happy_. “And well, I still don't want to die but this isn't a half-bad way to go out. I saved people, I'm a _hero_. And I did it all myself.”

“Yes, you did,” Steve replies. “And I'm glad, honestly. I knew you could do it, you know. I knew you could do something _good_ with what you've got, that _genius_. See? You didn't turn out so bad.”

“Still dying alone, though,” Tony points out, and it's supposed to sound like a joke but Steve knows it hurts him, hurts him that he couldn't find anyone who cared enough to stay. “Ah well. At least I know what's gonna happen after I die.”

“Yeah?” Steve raises an eyebrow. “And what's that?”

“Rhodey becomes Iron Man,” Tony says. “And Pepper gets Stark Industries. They won't fuck up, not like me. They'll make it all good.” And he smiles, and it's a nice smile, not sarcastic or fake or smug. It's a proper Anthony Stark smile and Steve finds he quite likes it. He saves it, files it away in the part of his consciousness that contains dark curls and brown eyes and healthy, glowing skin.

“You were wrong, you know,” Steve says abruptly. “About me not knowing what it's like to die, not having a life.” He doesn't know where this is coming from, just that he feels this is something Tony should know. As a rule, Steve _never_ tells his charges about himself, to avoid emotional attachment. But this is Tony, and he's _special_ , and Steve's already emotionally invested. There's no turning back now.

Tony blinks at him, surprised, no sarcastic remark for once. Steve continues, “I was human once, too. Not very long ago, in fact. Brooklyn, the forties. I was one of the engineered super soldiers designed by Dr. Erskine during World War II. You know of this project, your father was on it. I died at war. I don't know why I'm a reaper now, or why it happened so many years after I passed. But I do know what life is, and what it's like to die, and that's why it made me angry when you just threw yours away, so many times. You don't, you don't  _know_ what so many people would give for just a few more years, some more time to live, and you, you just didn't care.”

Tony is regarding him with something akin to regret and fascination both, and Steve holds his gaze defiantly. Finally Tony takes a step forward, and says, an olive branch, “It's not going to happen again. What you said.”

Steve nods. “Damn straight it's not.” He reaches out, and is surprised to find he can touch Tony. “What – how's this happening?” he wonders.

Tony chuckles. “Me, that'd be me. It's my mind we're in, right? So I can do pretty much everything.” Just as he says this Steve realizes that they're on the roof of Tony's mansion, and it's nighttime, quiet and peaceful, the moon and stars above them.

Steve rests his hand on Tony's shoulder, and then asks, “Do you believe in me? Now?”

“I don't know if you're real,” Tony replies honestly. “And I don't care. You somehow convinced me not to die, and I _know_ that what happened then, that night with the pills, that wasn't just a figment of my imagination or my subconscious wanting me to live or what the fuck ever. So whatever it is... I suppose you're real enough to me. God, that sounds cheesy, it was much better inside my head.”

Steve chuckles, not taking his hand off Tony's shoulder. “You know... you don't have to die now. You're still young. You can fight. And what with these new-fangled medical advancements and all, I'm pretty sure they can find a way to save you.”

Tony grins. “Maybe, maybe not. Either way.” He shrugs. “At least I'm not dying a  _complete_ failure.”

But Steve knows he's not dying at all.

 

* * *

The fifth time Tony is hurtling through the air, and his armor isn't working, his eyes are screwed shut and he seems  _terrified_ . “What happened?” Steve asks, and it feels like he's falling with Tony.

“There was no other way, I had to,” Tony rambles. “There was a nuke, _can you believe they sent out a fucking nuke_ , I told the fuckers I had it under control but they didn't God damn listen, and I took out the nuke but I'm out of power, _it's not working_ , I'm going to die and _I don't fucking want to_ – don't get me wrong,” he adds, calming down momentarily, “it's great to see you and all that, but you know. Not really good timing.”

“It never is, usually,” Steve says. “No way to make the suit work?”

“If there was I'd have figured it out!” snaps Tony, back to panicking. “And what are you anyway, some kinda fucking guardian angel? That's always there when I'm about to die?”

“I told you, I'm a reaper,” Steve tells him patiently. “I appear when your time comes to an end. As it has for the fifth time now.”

“It must be some kinda record,” comments Tony.

“No, that would be Castro,” Steve answers. “The number of attempts on that man's life. Jesus.”

“Dammit, I wanted a record.” He kicks furiously at the air, and then yells, “WHY WON'T THE STUPID SUIT _WORK_?”

He's very close to the ground now, only a few hundred feet. Steve watches, alarmed, as a skyscraper comes up, but there's nothing either of them can do to avoid it, and Tony's armor  _clangs_ loudly on the edge of it as he falls.

Somehow it sparks the power back on, and Tony whoops as the suit comes online and he powers up, swerving neatly out of the way of a flagpole sticking out horizontally from the building. “I'M NOT DEAD!” he yells triumphantly. “STEVE, DID YOU SEE–”

But Steve's gone again.

* * *

The sixth time is when he gets run over by a car because he couldn't be bothered to cross a busy street with his eyes off of his phone, and now he's lying comatose in the hospital again. “You're an idiot,” Steve informs him, sitting side by side on the Stark mansion's roof, their bodies pressed together from shoulder to knee.

“No I'm not,” Tony dismisses, but he's smirking.

* * *

He's half-dead already, lying in a pile in the debris of a school building. “I saved many kids,” he informs Steve with a smug grin. “I'm awesome.” A facade, Steve knows, to hide the way he still feels inside, after – or despite? – everything he's accomplished.

“You are.” Steve agrees anyway, because it's true.

“Am I going to die?”

There is a ghost of a smile on Steve's face. “Not today.” He reaches out to take Tony's hand, and isn't at all surprised that he can touch it.

“So why are you here? Aren't you only here when I'm about to die?” questions Tony.

Steve shrugs. “I don't know. There are a lot of things that don't make sense to me, like you, and technology, and human beings in general, and why I can touch you, and why I'm here when you're not going to die. But I'm not going to overthink it, Tony, unlike you.”

“I gotta have answers,” is Tony's short reply. He doesn't withdraw his fingers from Steve's.

“Sometimes you don't get the answers you want,” Steve tells him. “You don't always get what you want.”

“Yeah.” There is something unidentifiable on Tony's face.

* * *

He's been poisoned by someone and they're trying desperately to revive him, and Steve is back on the roof of the Stark mansion. This time he's sitting so close to Tony that he can count his heartbeats, and he doesn't know how it happened but he doesn't particularly care either. He knows Tony won't die. Tony knows, too.

“Is it weird that you can touch me now?” Tony asks. “Does it feel any different from how it normally feels to touch someone else?”

“Not really,” Steve tells him. “Though it's possible that I've gone so long without touching someone that I've forgotten what it's like.” Tony, he's discovered, is quite tactile. Now that there aren't any physical barriers, not really, Tony wastes no opportunity to lay a hand on his shoulder, or sit so close to him that he can feel the vibrations of his chest when he speaks, or occasionally just intertwine their fingers. It doesn't make sense to Steve either, because he never had a corporeal form with which to feel the touches, and yet they're still there.

“Do you think... that maybe you're becoming less and less of a reaper?” inquires Tony. “The rules don't exactly work, do they? I'm not even sure there _are_ rules. So it would make sense, or conversely, _not_ make sense, which actually makes more sense considering this situation–”

“That doesn't make any sense,” Steve says with a straight face, and Tony grins.

“Of course it fucking doesn't, Steve, that's my point.” He nudges him with his elbow. “Hey, don't you have more people to be reaping and stuff, when you're with me?”

Steve shakes his head. “I'd feel it if there were. It's funny, you know. I can't feel people like I used to. I can't tell when they're dying, unless I know so beforehand. I used to be connected to certain people's life forces, so that I could be there when they died, and I could help them cross over. Now? Now it's only you that I really  _feel_ .”

Tony thinks this over in his head. “That makes sense,” he finally says, and Steve smiles slightly.

“Does it?”

“Kind of. I don't know. Like I said, there are no rules for this kind of thing.”

They sit in silence for some time – or whatever passes for time inside Tony's head – and then Steve asks casually, “Does this happen often? People trying to get rid of you?”

“Oh, all the time,” Tony replies airily. “I usually get them before they get me, though. Except this time.”

Steve nudges him with his shoulder. “Be more careful next time, then.”

“Sure, sure.” Tony sounds distracted. Steve discovers why a moment later, when Tony asks, “Do you... do you know why I'm still alone?”

“No,” Steve answers truthfully. “I'd figured there would be people lining up to be with you.”

“There are, but that doesn't mean I want any of them,” Tony says. He fidgets a little. “I actually sat and thought a lot about it, but it's weird because I'm still not sure if you're real, and if I'm just... attracted to a figment of my imagination. Still, it's nice, being with you, and you're not half-bad when you're not bitching at me about dying. And you _feel_ real enough. So I don't know. It's not good that I'm letting it mess up the life that I _know_ is real, but there you have it.”

Steve takes some time to catch up with it all, and then he hesitantly reaches out, places his hand on Tony's knee. “It doesn't... I don't know what to do about it either, you know. I'm a reaper, you're a human. I'm pretty sure this hasn't happened before.”

“Oh, I don't know, I'm pretty sure Castro's fucking his reaper by now,” Tony interjects.

Steve bursts out laughing. “No, actually,” he tells Tony when he manages to get himself under control. “Different reaper for Castro, every time. I don't know why. No rules.”

“No rules,” repeats Tony, and he sounds sad but also a little hopeful, and it suddenly kills Steve inside because he can't handle seeing that look on Tony's face, and he can't handle having that tiny flame of hope that it just _might_ be possible.

“I think it's time for you to wake up now,” he says after a stretch of silence so long that it feels like the universe is pressing down on him from all sides. “They've cleared the poison from your system.”

“Yeah,” Tony says shortly. He stands, and so does Steve. “All right, then – see you when I see you.”

“Don't do anything stupid, Tony. I mean it,” Steve adds firmly in response to Tony's eye-roll. “I meant what I said about living, all those times. And believe me, I do want to see you again, I _do_ , but not like that, okay? You _promised_.”

Tony nods. “I never said I wasn't going to be keeping it,” he says softly, and leans forward on his tiptoes, getting into Steve's personal space. He's gone before Steve can properly feel his warm, dry lips on his own.

 

* * *

He's drowning and Steve is floating alongside him, and their hands are connected but try as he might Steve can't pull him to safety. He can only move him a few yards before he feels himself fading, and there are other,  _realer_ hands on Tony now, dragging him to land and air, and Steve is useless because he's not  _real_ enough.

* * *

He's sick, and it's serious, it's septicemia and how he even got it is beyond Steve, but they're inside his head again, on the roof of the Stark mansion, and Tony's got his head in Steve's lap, Steve's fingers carding through his hair. “Do I make it?” he asks quietly.

“I don't know,” Steve answers honestly. Lately he's been feeling more and more disconnected from what he's always perceived to be his reality. He wanders the streets of New York as he always has, even as a reaper, but it seems different now, more solid somehow – the _thump_ of his feet on the pavement, the fact that he feels more visible than otherwise...

“Something's happening to me,” he confides to Tony. “I feel... sleepy. I've never felt sleepy, not since I became a reaper.”

“Reapers probably need their rest too, you know,” Tony points out.

“No they _don't_ ,” Steve insists. “Tony... I don't think I'm a reaper anymore. I haven't had a soul since that time you fell out of the sky. I'm not connected to anyone except you, now. And I feel... like I exist, you know? Like, I can feel things, and touch them... did you know a woman nodded hi to me yesterday? And that's another funny thing – I've never needed a concept of time before, except where it related to my souls' lifespans. But now it feels a lot like it did when I was alive. Sometimes it's still wrong, like when my hands go through things I'm trying to touch, or when no one hears when I talk... but mostly, it's not. Tony... I think... I think I'm coming back.”

“Then how are you here, inside my head?” asks Tony, sitting up and looking Steve in the eyes. “If you're not a reaper anymore, how are you always here when I'm dying?”

“No rules,” Steve reminds him, but it doesn't sound right. He says this much out loud.

“What do you mean?”

“I think that there _are_ rules, there have to be,” Steve says. “Without rules everything would fall apart. There's probably something that defines what makes a reaper, and what doesn't, but I don't know what it is. All I know is that right now I'm a weird mix of both human and reaper.”

“Do you get to interact with other reapers?” asks Tony. “Like how you knew Castro had different reapers every time?”

“I used to,” Steve tells him. “Not anymore, though. But I don't know about their rules, I never asked because I never thought I needed to. It all disappeared right about the time I realized I could touch you, outside your head. And it's fading more and more now. Tony... I don't think I'll be here next time.”

“Where will you go, then?” questions Tony relentlessly. “What happens when you're not a reaper at all? Do you go back to being dead? Do you just fade out of existence and go to heaven or hell or wherever? Steve, _what's going to happen to you_?”

“I don't know,” Steve admits, and puts his hand on Tony's face. Tony closes his eyes, leaning into the touch. “I don't want to go.”

“Then don't,” Tony mutters. “Look, maybe you'll just cease to exist and I'll have to spend the rest of my life alone and miserable and forever wanting someone who I couldn't ever have... but maybe I won't. That thing you said. About rules. Maybe they're different for everyone. Maybe they're what you want them to be.”

Steve considers this. “Maybe,” he finally says. “It would explain why I can touch you, why I'm not a reaper anymore. I didn't... want to be if it meant being apart from you.”

“See?” Tony says, opening his eyes and flashing Steve a pleased grin. “Maybe you're just going to become human. Okay, look – if you do, come see me, okay? Run into me wherever, you said we were connected, right? That you could feel me. So come find me, and–”

“I don't know if it works that way,” Steve says softly, and Tony stops short, his lips parted just a little. “Tony... I can't guarantee anything.”

“It doesn't fucking matter, okay,” Tony says fiercely. “ _Try_. You made _me_ fight, just by asking me to. Do the same for me, dammit.”

“I will,” promises Steve, and something flares up inside him at the words, something warm and all-consuming and so _human_ , but he can't put a name to it, not just yet. So instead he leans forward and presses his lips against Tony's, and holds him as close as he can before it's time for him to return to the world of the waking again.

* * *

Something's different, this time. He feels solid and sturdy as he stands on the pavement, across the road from Stark Industries. He doesn't know how he got here, all that he's here now, where just a few moments earlier he was with Tony.

It's not nighttime, not like it was in Tony's head. It's broad daylight, and New York is in full-swing, people passing him by and cars rushing down the street, the air buzzing with the sound of harried humans talking on the phone, the scent of smog, the heavy heat of July, and suddenly Steve gets it, he gets it the minute he inhales and exhales and feels the dull thumping inside his chest.

He's  _alive_ . He's somehow alive again. He's  _real_ .

_Come find me._

He makes his way across the street, to the large, somewhat intimidating building up ahead. There are a few Stark Industries employees milling about outside on what looks like a smoke break and Steve edges closer to them, as surreptitiously as he can. He knows that the receptionist will never tell him where Tony actually is, but maybe he can find out through idle office gossip.

Or not. He's human now, again, and there is a completely new set of rules to follow. He's not going to get something just by wanting it by every fibre of his being, not like he could before. And he doesn't even know what hospital Tony would be in, he never bothered to ask,  _stupid, so stupid_ .

_Calm down,_ he tells himself.  _Be rational. Panic will not help anyone._

Help comes in the most unexpected form – a tall redhead striding purposefully out of the building towards a black limo. She's dressed in professional attire from head to toe, and Steve realizes who she is. He knows her from Tony's descriptions of her, and of his own observations of Tony's life.

“Miss Potts,” he says, stepping forward towards her and holding his hand out. “My name is Steve.” He can't really recall his last name right now – it's been so long – but it doesn't seem to matter.

She stops, regarding him with a stunned expression on her face. “Oh my God you're real,” she exclaims breathlessly.

Steve frowns. “Yes.”

“Tony told me about you,” she says, looking him up and down. “You're his, his reaper? Who's not a reaper anymore?”

“That's me, ma'am.” He smiles politely. “Miss Potts, I don't – I don't really have time, and I see you know everything already–”

“He told me,” she says, still looking awed. “I can't believe it's really you, though. I believed him, but I never thought you'd actually... be real. I thought you were someone he kept seeing inside his head. Frankly, it didn't make much sense to me – oh, I'm rambling.” She smiles, somewhat sheepish, and Steve decides he likes her.

“Do you know which hospital Tony's in?” he asks her. “I need to see him.”

She nods, and scribbles down an address in the planner she's carrying. She rips the page out and hands it to him. “I'm glad you're here,” she finally says, and offers him a real smile. “For his sake. Tony's. I'm glad.”

He smiles in return. “Me too, ma'am.”

 

* * *

Tony's asleep when Steve enters his room. It was quite a hassle, dealing with the security detail, but Pepper sorted it all out in the end and he was allowed through. Tony looks younger than he really is, his skin contrasting against the clinical white of the sheets. He looks much healthier than someone who's supposed to be dying, and while Steve's no doctor he knows Tony is better. He  _knows_ . There's still that much of a connection left over.

He approaches the bed slowly, feeling overwhelmed. It feels like if he stops to ponder his regained humanity, or the fact that all this is  _real_ , and it's happening, and not inside Tony's head, he'll discover that it's a farce, or that Tony's dead, or that none of this is happening and this is somehow his own special brand of hell.

He stops and stares for a full minute when he's finally at Tony's side, before hesitantly reaching out a hand and resting it on Tony's forehead. It should be fever-warm but it's not, it's just the right temperature, and Steve smiles to himself. He's  _here_ , he's  _real_ and  _alive_ and he's  _touching Tony_ , and later it will all catch up with him and he will be breathless and overwhelmed, but for now he just feels calm and centered as he looks at Tony.

Tony's eyes flutter open just then. It takes him a few seconds to register what he's really seeing, and then he smiles sleepily. “Knew you'd come,” he says. “You couldn't not. You're too noble for that abandonment shit.”

Steve smiles back. “I made a promise, and I intend to keep it,” he says. Then he asks, “How are you feeling? Do you need water, or anything?” He eyes the machines surrounding Tony apprehensively, not knowing if he might accidentally set them off or not. Would they tell him if Tony needed anything, or was technology not quite that advanced yet?

“I'm fine,” Tony answers, a little hoarsely. “I'm fucking awesome, actually. You – you're _here_.”

“I am,” Steve confirms, and covers Tony's hand with his free one, taking care not to disturb the IV drip. “And I'm staying.”

“I know,” Tony murmurs, already half-asleep. “You promised.”

And Steve understands what it is that made him human again, the reason he's here, the cause of the warmth inside him. He gets it as he smiles down at Tony and watches him drift back to sleep, breathing in and out steadily, skin a healthy pink and hair curling just so over his ear. It's the simplest thing, it's been all along.

_Love._

 

**Author's Note:**

> FEEEEEEDBAAAAAAAAAAACK PLS  
> Do comment and let me know what you though :)
> 
> [my tumblr.](http://chester--bennington.tumblr.com/)   
> [renae's tumblr.](http://agentshnucumbs.tumblr.com/)


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